Official notice

Time for major celebration here!!! Deb is finished working!!! We have been looking forward to this day so that she can now join me in exercising at the Y and walking with the nature club and working out at home. With her encouragment, I hope to stay "on track" better and we can get healthier together. Deb's plans also include losing her cigarette habit but that is one she needs to work on alone. She has mentioned the possibility to looking for work again in the spring...guess that depends on just how stir crazy she gets being at home with me all the time.

Our strange white winged sparrow

Here are the first somewhat decent pictures we have managed to get of our allusive white winged sparrow. We think we have a few of these genetically strange birds in our neighbourhood. We have seen them frequently at our feeder this summer but can not find anything like it in any bird books or even online. as you can see they hang out with the sparrows and act like sparrows, they just have these beautiful white tipped feathers. One has full white feathers on the edges of the wings creating a V white line when sitting. Pretty cool birds but very shy. They normally sit well back in the cedars and always take off when we pull out the camera. I took these shots from inside our garage.

Fanshawe

LOL. I came across this picture among a bunch on memory stick in camcorder, Chris checking out ocean life on PEI. This was taken the summer following Chris' year of residential schooling. That big belly is long gone now that he has lost the "lesson" of "for every bad snack you have to eat a good snack".

Well, I have completed the easy course...final class was last night! My mark will be 100%..net yet posted online but I have received all my assignments back with perfect marks on all. Too bad the course weighting is so low. Most courses are a weighting of 3 or more and this is only a 1. Oh well, it will help my overall average even if only a bit. :-)

Next week is mid-term exam for accounting. The week after that will be the second of three exams for marketing. You can be sure I will be working on filling my brain with proper terminology and accounting formats for coming tests.

Partiers

Here are out weekend party people(Elaine, Barbie and Deb). .....banished to the messy garage for smoking purposes. At least they are smiling about it! It was great to meet Elaine (since I was too sick to make it to her birthday party). We enjoyed the evening playing cards and of course LAUGHING!!!!!

Congratulations

Congratulations to my sister, Shirley. She is about to be laid off permanently because her employer did not renew their contract and therefor are closing the Niagara branches. She has been worried about what will come next for her. She has now been offered and accepted a job in Fort Erie. Steady day shift, closer to home with easier commute and room for advancement because it is a fairly new company. Sounds like a perfect opportunity. She starts new job Nov. 5th but is finished present job Oct. 31st. that gives her a few days to re coop and shift gears. Of course mom's surgery is scheduled for Oct. 24th and Shirl plans to spend nights at mom's when she gets out of hospital on Oct. 29th. Mom has been working hard to get her body in better shape before this surgery. She has been working out in the pool at the Y up to four times per week. For sure, she will do much better with this knee recovery than she did with first!

Still looks like summer here

Ok ..so the sun isn't shining and yes those are scarecrow feet hanging to the right of the flower and a little crow scarecrow to the left...but...this little red ????(brain gone dead and can't remember what it's called) is one of the flowers which we had for centerpieces at mom's birthday party in the spring. It has bloomed nicely beside our front steps all summer. we are still trying to get a picture of our allusive little sparrow with white wings. He's pretty but smart...flies every time we have the camera ready. We thought he had gone from the area but I saw him this morning and his wing tips are even more startlingly white.
The warbler has not been back. Too bad because he wasn't shy but we were too slow taking in all his details before running for cameras..by the time I got the cameras ready he was tired of looking at us and flew off. according to internet they are not normally in this area..considered "rare" visitor.

Nature club walk

This morning I managed to meet up with the ladies from the nature club. We strolled through an area of the "Middlesex County Forest". I had never been through any of that property before because I didn't realize that it is public lands. It is quite out of the way from most traffic and no signage saying what it is, so I'm sure many people are unaware. The trail was quite nice for walking...it seems to have been cleared by something about the size of an ATV and the trail looks as though it is used by ATV or dirt bikes. Upon leaving after our walk I drove down the road and noted many other trails leading out into the forested areas. I will have to return with Deb to check out more trails here!

backyard birds

Deb noticed an unusual visitor in our backyard this afternoon. I delayed in checking him out and almost missed seeing him. We did get the binoculars and both cameras and managed to get a great look at him(not shy at all, he was quietly sitting in a bush next to our patio) but unfortunately for some reason the camera didn't record. We checked our stack of bird books and we believe it was a "worm-eating warbler". Very distinctive head stripes with grayish-brown back and yellowish breast fading to white near tail on underside. The beak was very different too....dark, very narrow and pointy...obviously some kind of bug eater. After thorough check of online sources I am more convinced that this is what we saw today. We hope he comes back tomorrow so we can get a picture!

Doctor seems to be regular habit with us!

Well we have finally recovered fully from our nasty colds and the dog seems to be on the mend. Tonight I was back at doctor's office to have some moles removed from my upper arms. ...they often become itchy and bothersome. I now have a hole with two stiches in each arm....quick, easy procedure done at the local health center. Deb was also back to see Dr. Kim today for another check on her blood pressure...gee ...Do you think there is a trend here in our house with high blood pressure and hummm...Just what could be causing that? Anyway, she is still a bit high but Dr. feels it is not a big worry, but since she is over 50 and a smoker, she is being sent for further tests to check on the width of her arteries before a final decision is made on if she requires drugs to protect her from her elevated blood pressure.

On the brighter side of our lives...we got some new chairs delivered today. I bought them a few weeks ago when our local store had advertised sale..plus no tax. Bargain I just couldn't pass up. It's nice to finally be getting things looking nice around here...now I just gotta learn to pick up my papers and have less mess around....yep.... check out the pile on table between the chairs. LOL. Other side of living room has our last big purchase, the lazyboy love seat. This now gives us seating room for 5 in the living room if we utilize the computor chair. Of course we NEVER have 5 people in here at once but now we could if we wanted to!

Dusty

Debbie's baby seen here wandering in the backyard, has not been feeling so well this week(yep you are looking at the troubled end of her). We first noticed on Tuesday that she didn't want to move much or go walking....very unusual for her but not noticed on Monday because it was rainy and overcast all day which would normally have her in hiding. When Deb and I discussed it on Tuesday night we discovered neither of us had seen her poop since Sunday(that is normally twice a day event for her). We decided to get her to vet Wednesday. There the doctor found clogged anal glands ...not an easy examination...the only thing Dusty hates having touched more than her feet is her "privates". Well, this doctor had to perform unmentionables to Dusty's privates and then clean and inject some sort of antibiotic there too. Afterward she was given an injection for pain and we were given antibiotic pills to give to her 2X's daily for next week...along with instructions on feeding wet food with added oil and fiber. We had to return Thursday for same sort of treatment and today went back in for simple cleansing and another pain injection. She finally seems to be on the mend...she pooped today for first time since last Sunday. Poor little thing!!!! Hopefully we've seen the last of the vet's office for awhile!

SLOW START

Well I completed my first online test today. The course is "Principals of Marketing 1", which is the course I was really not thrilled to be taking....too many "buzz words" to learn! Anyway my mark was an uncharacteristic 72%. Although I was very disappointed in myself at the time, I am feeling better at this point. I just checked the class stats and half the people have completed the test at this point and class average is 64%...makes me feel somewhat better about poor mark. Only have feedback on 1 assignment thus far and that was 100% mark...more like what I expect of myself.. for sure! School work is coming along well, I'm not finding it difficult at all to keep up with assignments, reading, powerpoint lessons and practice exercises...actually doing alot more than required. Also I am trying to work ahead on some assignments in case I get too busy toward end of term.

DOVE ad campaigns

I'm sure that you are all aware of recent Dove ad campaigns which feature REAL women rather than computer enhanced images of women. A guy from my marketing class posted this weblink to their ad site. Click on the underlined words and check it out. I don't much care for Dove products but their new ads are fantastic for our young women to gain perspective on their own body image. If you have time to play, check out the whole site...lots of fun interactive stuff all contected to body image, including links to personalize and send out messages and videos to young women you care about. I really love the videos. I personalized the one called "Amy" and sent it out to Miranda....hope I remembered the address correctly and she gets it. She may have already seen the site because I sent email to Dustin a few days ago and asked him to forward the link to her after he checks the site out.

ELECTION

Deb and I did our duty. We went out and voted yesterday. We prefer to do the advanced poll option for voting because there are usually no long lineups or waiting time involved with voting ahead of time. If you still don't understand the referendum issue check out this site . We also watched a debate on the issue to help us decide. We think it is time for a change in our system and hope you will decide the same. Maybe with new system we can see our government being more accountable and actually making some real changes for the little people and for our environment. We think it would be nice to have some new voices heard in high places. Whatever you decide please get out and vote. This year it is especially easy to do with advance polls open daily.